We bought a small house adjacent to a five-acre parcel, which we already owned. My husband wasn’t enthusiastic, but I felt the decision was a wise one. I was weary of living in the country, and wanted a place in town, with all the comforts it could offer: a gym, movies, a decent cup of coffee.
The colors inside the house didn’t work for me. The walls were white. The windows were trimmed in an aqua blue, known locally as Taos blue. The floors were the warm gold and russet of Mexican Saltillo tiles.
Though the small size of the space provided a reason to keep the colors consistent, I really didn’t like what was there. Change, harnessed by a slim budget, meant a new color scheme and paint was in order.
My first mistake was putting an overly bright yellow in the kitchen, mainly because it was a color my color-blind husband could take in. Once it was up on the walls, I asked for one more coat of a lighter yellow, and I don’t think he ever noticed the difference.
I had chosen a dark green for doors and trim. In the study, a light cappuccino wall with green trim, and in that case, a deep red door, worked very well. But in the kitchen, dark green trim set up a design problem.
I didn’t have a clue, but my own ambivalence, about where to go next with the kitchen, until a friend, who was an interior decorator, took a look. “There’s too much going on,” she said, of my second mistake, and advised me to paint the trim in the same yellow, which I had never considered.
She also advised me that the wall viewed upon first entering was the accent wall, and not the smaller hanging wall that nested my appliances. The contrasting paint was removed from that wall, my third mistake, and a bronze paint went up on the proper accent wall.
Ultimately the kitchen yellow was changed again, to one called woven basket, which moved toward neutral, and enabled me to pull the room together. I added a green pantry near the doorway, to transition into the living room, which was painted a soft kahki. That’s a decorator trick. But the more neutral yellow had already provided a non-jarring flow into the living room, because the colors had similar value, something to consider.
Alas, let us address the fourth mistake. Having no garage into which I could duck my brooms and mops, pails and dusters, I lobbied for a utility closet. I checked in the usual places but everything was expensive, particularly given the materials of construction. There are times when having an item custom built is the only reasonable solution. I went to one of the local rustic furniture makers.
My husband and I took our notes and our measurements, since we knew exactly where the piece was to go, and made a deal to pay four hundred dollars. The furniture maker asked if I would bring the paint, which I agreed to do. In turn, he promised to deliver with no additional charge.
When the piece arrived five inches too tall, causing a problem with a wall light, and further, without the finished back which we had stipulated, I went into a stricken-speechless shock. My husband, ever agreeable, pronounced the piece fine, as the maker suggested that we could remove the feet.
We accepted the piece, though the maker said he would redo it, and ended up having to add another coat of paint, putty the back, and give up on the light fixture. How could this happen? I concluded that the furniture maker was well-intentioned, but that his attention to detail wasn’t quite in line with our own, and I vowed that any further custom work would necessitate a contract in very large print suggesting that payment would meet standards.
Now we move on to the fifth mistake. This one involved the living room, and surrounded a custom-built bookcase. We used a different furniture maker, but when the piece arrived, the mottled brown and white surface had nothing to do with the white surface that I had requested.
In this case we took the advice of the maker and “lived with it” for two days, and then requested that he pick it up. But by then we had decided that instead of white, we wanted it to match the color of the wall. Once again, I was to provide the paint. But in this case the mistake worked to our advantage, because we were able to change our minds at no additional charge.
To say something about custom work, especially on simply constructed pieces, there are risks, but what you avoid is the cheap quality and lack-choice of products which are on the market. You can’t beat solid wood construction, and a piece that can be repainted or refinished for years to come, plus it’s good to support the local economy and artisans.